Betty Brockman Martin’s parents operated a delicatessen on SW Jefferson
Street in Portland, on property owned by Reed. She said that the family’s business
association with the college helped convince her and her sister Wanda Brockman ’40
to enroll. Martin spent five years earning her bachelor’s degree in mathematics, during
a time when women were encouraged to be stenographers or teachers. After her initial job
as an actuary in an insurance company in Portland, Martin took a civil service test and went
to Moffitt Field in California to work for NASA in its high-speed wind tunnel. She and her
husband moved to Washington, where they raised three children. Both her husband and her sister
died in 1992.

“The Edward VIII speech”

Students convened in the chapel during Martin’s years (1936–41)
to listen to important radio broadcasts, including speeches by Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill’s
declaration of war, and the abdication of Edward VIII. “We were absolutely shocked
when we heard of King Edward’s abdication. And then, of course, the rest of the day
was just discussion of ‘What does this do to England? What will this do to the monarchy?’ Some
students prepared banners that read ‘Simpson for Queen’ and put them all over
downtown Portland. The banner plastering produced a good laugh.”

After the U.S. agreed to join
the World War II Allied efforts.
. . .

With the draft in place, Martin felt that men were more affected
by the prospect of war than women, but the discussions about war involved everyone on campus. “It
always reverted to something like, ‘What is Europe going to do next?’ We certainly
couldn’t foretell the future, the horrors of World War II, and I think we probably
thought it would all stay in Europe.” On a return to campus years after the war,
she saw the plaque in the entrance to Eliot Hall for the World War II fallen. “I
looked at it and I thought, ‘I knew all of those young men, and they were the cream
of the crop.’ It was really hard and sad to see that.”

"Some students prepared banners that read ‘Simpson
for Queen’ and put them all over downtown Portland. The banner plastering produced
a good laugh. "

A typical day

Martin was a day dodger vs. a “lodger,” so she attended
very few social events, nor could she stay on campus and study at the library. Getting
to and from Reed required spending hours on buses. She started her day at Reed with an
8 a.m. class, worked at the library after class to pay tuition, then went home and helped
her parents close up their store. It took five years to get her bachelor’s degree. “I
came out with a very odd, love–hate relationship with Reed. I think it’s because
it stretched me to the very limits of everything I could produce. And the only way I knew
that was when I got out into the business world and had no problem at all. I rose to the
top in every position I ever had because other people were not as stringently trained as
I was. Well, I didn’t know that while I was at Reed.”

Two requirements for graduation: swimming and a reading knowledge
of French

“I spent three years in that blasted swimming pool out at
Reed, trying to learn to swim. And I don’t think I ever really made it. Languages
I did not like. Whenever I would stand to read French out loud, the professor would hold
his head. ‘Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!’ he would say.” A swimming-related incident
took place in her economics class—she was the only woman and non-participant. “One
day I went in to class, which was right after lunch. And the professor came in with all
the rest of the young men just in their swim shorts. Nothing more on. And he said, ‘We
just came from the swimming pool and we’re going back! And we didn’t think
you would mind.’ So they all sat down in their wet swimming trunks and we had class.
Now in how many other colleges does that happen? (Do they still do that at Reed?)”

The honor principle

Martin said that students, especially freshmen, were told, “if
you cheat in any way, that’s your problem. You’ll get out in the world and
you will not be able to maintain what you’re expected to do. So it’s really
cheating yourself. We don’t care about grades, they always said, it’s you that
is important. And they dwelt on that quite a bit.”

Professors A.A. Knowlton and F.L. Griffin

Knowlton, said Martin, taught her how to think, that in order to
solve a problem, one must start at the basics. “The year I had with him, I think
he influenced my life more than anyone. He used to stand me up in a corner and make me
recite all of the definitions of the words in a problem in order to solve the physics problem.
I was able to carry that over into other businesses and work.”

Griffin was her teacher and thesis adviser, and someone who thought
that 5 1/2 hours of sleep was sufficient. (“Somehow I needed more than 5 1/2 hours
. . .”) “Writing the thesis [The Geodesics on a Torus and Their Isogonal
Projections] was one of the high points of my mathematical career. I loved my thesis.
I loved the subject, and I wrote it very well. And he was proud of me, too. I think quite
surprised. He told me one time later that he took my thesis with him to the University
of Chicago when he went back for a conference, and they looked at it and said, ‘Why,
this is a master’s degree thesis!’” Griffin helped her secure her first
position, which she began the day after graduation.